Page 59 of The Herald's Heart
“Who can tell? Tomorrow we can search the caves in the cliffs.”
“Why there?”
“Because they connect to this keep. It may well be that the earl kept his most valued items outside the building, believing that they would be safer there than where a servant might come across them.”
“Aye, ’tis possible. I should have thought of that.”
“Neither of us thought of it.” He grasped her other hand and drew her closer. She did not pull away. “If you are finished here, I will escort you to your chamber. That is, unless ...”
His voice shook with the restraint he placed on himself. This gentle pleading was not the way he wished to do things. He longed to seize Larkin by the waist, carry her to the solar, strip her naked, and pleasure them both until she never wanted to leave his bed again. But he held back because he wanted much more from her than mere coupling. He desired her willingness, her passion, and her need.
“Unless, what?”
“Unless you would care join me in the solar.”
Larkin’s eyes glinted, and her mouth formed a thin line. She snatched her hands away.
Walking to the door, she looked at him as if he were some slimy thing she’d passed on the road. “Perhaps you should find Sir Amis and spend time with some tavern wenches.” Then she stalked out, closing the door with a definitive thump.
He sat, stunned. What had his friend said or done to make Larkin send them chasing after whores? He leapt from the stool, about to chase after her and assure her that he’d no desire for whores or any other woman. He stopped with his hand on the latch.
She was angry over something that had to do with her value to him, he was certain of it. Nothing else would prompt a woman to send a man she cared for to women so far beneath her. Good. She felt something for him. Tomorrow, in the isolation of the caves and free from Amis’s interference, he would discover exactly what those feelings were.
